Allianz, MAN pays off all debt for manroland -paper

FRANKFURT Nov 12 (Reuters) - Germany's Allianz SE (ALVG.DE) and MAN SE (MANG.DE) will pay off the remaining debt owed by their jointly owned printing press subsidiary, manroland.

"At the end of 2008 we had no net debt and soon we will be completely free of debt," manroland Chief Executive Gerd Finkbeiner told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview that will be published in the paper's Friday edition.

"Our owners will replace the remaining liabilities entirely with equity," he continued.

Allianz Capital Partners, the private equity arm of the German insurer, bought a 65 percent stake in the printing press maker from owner MAN in July 2006 in a deal that saddled the target with 380 million euros of debt.

While Finkbeiner said the world's second-largest maker of printing presses was strong enough to survive on its own, he indirectly warned the other two big German rivals Heidelberg (HDDG.DE) and Koenig & Bauer (SKBG.DE) not to block deeper discussions simply by citing antitrust issues.

Sources told Reuters recently Heidelberg's significant problems had caused manroland to put a merger plan on ice. [ID:nL9688816] [ID:nLC362906]

The three German companies are the largest in the industry, but with more media wandering online, there has been a fall in demand for printed media that many have tried to compensate for by offering better printing solutions for branded packaging as well as more services and aftersales.

Finkbeiner said everyone in the industry was essentially talking to each other about how to best survive the crisis but he denied reports manroland had spoken to Shanghai Electric (2727.HK).

The manroland CEO also defended the German government's decision to rescue Heidelberg from insolvency. [ID:nL9354463]

"Before an export country allows key industries to collapse, the state rightly thought about how it can form a bridge (to better times) ... In view of the unbelievable development, that's OK," he said, adding Heidelberg has to pay interest on the aid anyway. (Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner; Editing by Gary Hill)